Month: April 2011

Do you know that what you have, or don’t have, in your pocket can affect the outcome of your job search?Experience. Education. Skills. We all know that these factors matter when you’re on the hunt for a new job, but how can the contents of your pocket make a difference? These 5 Personal Branding will tell you just that, and more.

1. It’s All In Your Head“The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne is based upon the law of attraction; thoughts become things. While I won’t say that you can sit at home all day thinking about a new job and it will simply manifest itself, I will say that thinking positive works. Taking it a step further to look positive on the outside is important as well. According to Harvard and Wesleyan economists, attractive people get hired and promoted more readily and earn more money because they’re seen as more self-confident.

2. Practice Makes PerfectAsk any pro sports athlete and they’ll tell you that practice is essential to winning the game. If you want to win the job search game, practice your personal branding pitch. Step 1: Create the pitch. Step 2: Practice the pitch. Step 3: Deliver an authentic, natural pitch. Delivering a practiced pitch without your personality and authentic, individual stories is like showing up on the beach in August with a spray tan. You can do it but why would you?

3. Pocket Power“Let’s connect next week. Do you have a card?” Job seeker home run! Fireworks are going off in your head until you realize you don’t have business cards. What do you do now? Play it cool? Ask for their card? Sure, you can do that. Or, you can be a powerfully branded professional and hand them a personal branded business card, land an appointment for next week and enjoy the firework display going on in your head. Check out www.vistaprint.com for easy-to-make cards.

For many, technology plays a pivotal role in how we search for a job. Thanks to online resources, applying for a dream position is as easy as a click of a mouse. But in a competitive market, how do you make sure your resume gets in the right hands?

Robert Crowder, head of talent acquisitions at Aetna in Hartford says he sees more than 430 applications come in each day. He warns job seekers, however, about becoming a ‘resume spammer.’

“Technology has probably made it easier for more people to apply to a job, so, that’s where we get that phenomenon of resume spammers. It is so much easier to apply to a larger volume of things,” said Crowder.

So how do you choose where to send your application? Crowder says although career sites are great, it is best to go right to the source.

“We use CareerBuilder at times, but primarily it ends up being our own site,” Crowder said.

If you want your resume to stand out, Crowder says make sure it matches the position for which you are applying.

“Use those keywords that are in the job description that are relevant to your background and that will help you rise up in somebody taking a look at your background,” said Crowder.

If it is skilled work you are looking for, however, Rina Fochi, human resources manager for Stew Leonards said, your background is not everything.

“Be open to learning new things and doing different things that you might not have done before, because to be more flexible allows the employer to be more flexible,” said Fochi.

According to Fochi, with 36 percent of the store’s team members having been referred by employees who already worked there, networking is key.

According to the 2010 Global Brainstorming Day LinkedIn is now the #1 online networking platform for active and passive job searchers. Career coaches, resume writers, and outplacement specialists all agree that if you are looking to impress, be found, and get results online, you need a well-branded LinkedIn profile.

Today’s hiring managers use LinkedIn to source and research candidates. Devote time to establishing a quality, branded LinkedIn profile that will attract recruiters and job opportunities. Job searchers, who don’t take time to write a strategic, keyword rich LinkedIn profile, may be overlooked by recruiters.

About LinkedInLinkedIn is the largest professional network online, hitting a milestonein May 2011, with over 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. About one million new members join LinkedIn every week. Originally created as a place to build an online resume, today it is primarily used for professional networking.

Users create profiles promoting their work history or online resumes. LinkedIn profiles include career history, education, connections and professional recommendations. Additionally you can join groups for networking purposes.

How to Find a Job Using LinkedIn

Build Your Personal Brand: Use your LinkedIn profile to manage your professional brand or career footprint. This self-packaging is all about differentiation you in the job marketplace. You want to leave an indelible impression on your contacts and the community that is uniquely distinguishable.

Profile Perfect: Your LinkedIn profile must match your resume and needs to be complete and flawless. No spelling or typographical errors. This is your resume online and it will be critiqued by recruiters, hiring managers and HR staff.

Professional Photo: Get an updated, professional headshot made and communicate to your prospective employer who you are through your energy, warmth and approachability. If you don’t have a professional portrait, post a flattering, professional picture of yourself.

Headline: Your headline will automatically display as the last job you held unless you change it. Consider making your headline your professional brand, or the job you are targeting. Brand yourself for the job you want – for your future.

One morning in the 1980s, I went to the office as usual and was told that my job was being eliminated. I packed up my personal effects and left the building by lunchtime.

I was, of course, in shock. For 10 years, my whole world had consisted of my work with this company and my young, growing family. Now half of that world had disappeared. I was angry and bitter and I felt remarkably alone.

Fortunately, the company set me up with an outplacement counselor who gave me very good advice about building a network — advice that I follow to this day. I not only found a new great job that helped me get my career on track, but I built relationships with hundreds of friends and advisors who have stood me in good stead for decades.

Here’s my step-by-step guide to building your own successful network.

Step #1: Identify your network cluster. First, figure out where you want to focus your efforts. Do you want to work for a large corporation, a medium-sized company, or a startup? Are you interested in marketing, sales, manufacturing, IT or any other specific function? What are your geography limitations? Then, create a list of contacts within those parameters — not just executives within a chosen company, but also executive search specialists, consultants, and anyone else who can help within your areas of interest and expertise.

Step #2: Ask for ideas and advice. Contact each person on your list and say, “I was recommended to you by [so-and-so]. I’m hoping to get your ideas and advice for my job search, and would appreciate 15 minutes of your time.” During your interview, give them your brief elevator pitch outlining your background and skills, and then ask for their ideas and advice. Remember, this meeting is not about asking for a job. It’s about being very sensitive to your interviewee’s time, and listening carefully to what they have to say. As the meeting wraps up, ask for names of a couple of people they recommend you talk to. With each interview, you will gain two more leads. Within a few months, you will develop a large number of leads in your areas of interest.

Step #3: Follow up immediately with personal, handwritten thank-you notes to everyone you encountered during the meeting — not just your interviewee, but also to the executive assistant and even the person at the front desk — and mail it the day after your interview. Doing so signals that you are a quality person, that you care, and that you are on top of your game. This is an opportunity for you to establish a distinctive job search — make the most of it.

While job seekers should never rely entirely on job boards, here’s a tip for when you do browse listings: Use niche sites.

Too often, job seekers turn to large, well-known job boards like Monster, Indeed, CareerBuilder.com, or SimplyHired. But tapping into niche sites, which offer listings for a specific industry or location, increases your chances not only of finding the job you’re looking for, but also of landing that job, experts say.

Why? Because contrary to popular belief, large job boards don’t aggregate all listings. Smaller, more targeted sites usually include openings that don’t show up elsewhere. They also sometimes offer contact information for the hiring manager rather than routing you to a generic application, which means your resume is less likely to disappear into a black hole. And while applicants from niche sites tend to be more qualified—because their skill set more often matches what the employer is looking for—you’ll compete with fewer candidates there than you would on well-known sites.

“You’re a bigger fish in a smaller pond,” says Chris Russell, a job board consultant and CEO of AllCountyJobs.com. “You have more chance of standing out on a niche job board than you do on a Monster.”

Smaller companies in particular often prefer using niche boards to find applicants because they tend to get responses from higher quality candidates, Russell says, which means they have to sift through fewer applications to find the right hire. If a manager is looking for a sales employee, for example, she knows she’s reaching out to the right audience when she posts on Sales Gravy, a networking community for sales professionals that includes a job board. Universities that want to hire faculty often post on HigherEdJobs. And companies that need to fill programming or other tech-heavy positions are smart to turn to CrunchBoard, a job board on TechCrunch, a website that focuses on technology and Internet news.

Indeed, for every industry, there’s a niche job board—or two or three or more. But how to find them? Niche boards aren’t as in your face as the massive job websites, so you have to know to go fishing for one that’s relevant for your skills. To start, talk to your co-workers or other people who work in your industry about where they look for jobs, or ask hiring managers where they post open positions. Consulting Google also works; type your industry plus “jobs” into the search engine, and “chances are, if [niche job boards are] on the first page [of results], they’re worth using,” Russell says. You can also browse lists of niche sites like this one from Internet Inc.com, but recognize that they’re not all-inclusive.

Keep your guard up for spammy sites, says Jeff Dickey-Chasins, a consultant who blogs about job boards. “There are plenty of sites out there that just sort of exist for traffic reasons.” Owners of those sites make money off Google advertisements, so if the site you’re using is over-populated with Google ads or others that are unrelated to employment, it’s a good sign you should look elsewhere, he says.

Contrary to myth, new college grads don’t need a 3.7-or-higher GPA to get hired at Google, says a new book. What they do need: Passion for technology and a track record of stellar achievement.

Dear Annie: I will be graduating from an Ivy League college in a couple of months and I’d really like to go to work for Google. The only problem is, I’ve heard that the company won’t even interview anyone whose grade point average is below 3.7, and mine is barely 3.0.That’s mostly because I’ve spent a lot of time working at a tech startup in Boston instead of studying, just because it interests me more. For the past year or so, I’ve also put several hours a week into pro bono work for a local nonprofit, setting up a fundraising database, streamlining their bookkeeping, and developing their social media presence. I think these things are fine additions to my resume, but will my so-so GPA disqualify me? — Busy Off-Campus

Dear BOC: Your timing is terrific, since Google (GOOG) announced in January that it is embarking on a hiring spree this year. Alan Eustace, vice president for engineering and research, revealed in a blog post that Google expects to surpass its 2007 record for new hires. That year, the company added more than 6,000 people to its payroll.

The reason: Enormous growth in Google’s Android mobile operating system, Google Apps platform, and Chrome browser, as well as other early-stage projects like Google Voice, robot cars, and an all-Web PC operating system. “We’ll hire as many smart, creative people as we can to tackle some of the toughest challenges in computer science,” Eustace wrote.

To boost your chances of being one of the people Google brings aboard, you might want to take a look at a new book, The Google Resume: How to Prepare for a Career and Land a Job at Apple, Microsoft, Google, or Any Top Tech Company. Author Gayle Laakmaan McDowell, a Wharton MBA, is founder and CEO of CareerCup.com, a job site for tech professionals.

Before launching that business, McDowell interned at Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL). Then she worked in Google’s engineering division for three years, where she served on the hiring committee, interviewed more than 120 job candidates, and pored over piles of resumes.

The experience gave her a clear understanding of which resumes get noticed and which ones land in the circular file. As the title suggests, the book includes samples of each, along with detailed notes on what kinds of experiences to include in your resume and how to present it.

You’ll be heartened to hear that a 3.0 GPA doesn’t necessarily wreck your prospects at Google. McDowell acknowledges that the 3.7-or-higher-GPA myth is widespread, but she discounts it. “When I joined Google, my team of eight people included three who didn’t have college degrees at all,” recalls McDowell. “And our next college hire had a GPA that wasn’t so hot.”

She adds: “Academia is merely one way to distinguish yourself, and there are plenty of others. So if your GPA, or your school, doesn’t stand out, look for additional avenues. Besides, you’ll need to excel in multiple areas to get your resume selected.”Your question suggests you’ve already got “multiple areas” going for you, so consider a few of the other things McDowell says Google looks for:Find Out What They Are Looking For By Reading The Rest Of The Fortune Article